ARCHITETTURE inQUIETE. Interpretazioni e strumenti per il progetto dei complessi manicomiali storici

The research topic is the reuse of former psychiatric hospitals, with a specific focus on their the character of suffering and the role this plays in conditioning use and design . The interest of investigation derives from the lack of enhancement of this heritage and has two specific objectives: - to advance knowledge about the reuse practices that have been implemented. - to understand how the character of suffering acts and can be channelled positively in the design of these places. The study assumes that suffering creeps into the space and shapes it; therefore, it conditions the experience of use but can also become a potential matter for the project. After clarifying themes and approaches, the research develops in three parts. The first part, on the so-called 'places of suffering', collects questions and indications from a repertoire of case studies and then explores them through a transdisciplinary theoretical path. The second part delves further into the asylum type and studies, through direct and indirect sources, the assumptions that determined its appearance, first as an "ideal" space and then as an effectively realised architecture. In particular, the study analyses the historical Italian system, as an exceptional case of asylum heritage that was completely dismantled as a result of the Basaglia Law, and then compares it with the French system, in order to verify similarities and differences between contexts subjected to different processes and fates. The third part explores the design tools throught the project itself: in fact, : it collects the results of the experiments carried out on the two former Sardinian psychiatric hospitals Villa Clara in Cagliari and Rizzeddu in Sassari and the Hôpital Psychiatrique in Ville-Évrard, Neuilly-sur-Marne, identified during the collaboration with ENSA Paris-Val-de-Seine, and finally summarises the conceptual and operational contents useful to operate on this kind of places.